


A Noble Purpose

by Anonymous



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Anal Fingering, Angst, Arthur Ketch Being an Asshole, Attempted Forced Orgasm, Bondage, Castiel Wearing Sam’s Clothes, Crying Castiel (Supernatural), Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gagged Castiel, Guilty Castiel (Supernatural), Guilty Dean Winchester, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Non-Consensual Groping, Non-Consensual Kissing, Non-Consensual Touching, Protective Castiel (Supernatural), Protective Dean Winchester, Protective Sam Winchester, Ritual Sex, Tied-Up Castiel (Supernatural)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-31
Updated: 2019-03-31
Packaged: 2019-12-29 22:23:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18303038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Ketch has found a way that might protect Dean from Michael, but it involves an intimate act with Cas.Cas will do anything to save Dean, and Ketch knows it, and takes full advantage.After all, Michael must be stopped.





	A Noble Purpose

**Author's Note:**

> See end notes re potential triggers.

“You seen Cas?”

Sam looked up from the book he was studying; a heap of scrunched up paper balls by his side told Dean not to ask how well his little brother’s research session was going.

Except…. Dean had expected Cas to be there, too, helping Sam, trying to find a way to keep Michael where he was, locked up tight inside Dean’s head until they could find a way to remove him without scouring half of Dean’s brain out with him.

He shoved down the hurt; even angels needed a time out, and after everything Cas had sacrificed for this family, he couldn’t grudge Cas a break.

Reasoning didn’t really take the sting out of it, or do much to quell the sudden spurt of temper.

Because Sam was tired too; he had bags under his eyes bigger than their duffels, but he was still at it.

“Ketch wanted to show him something,” Sam said, sounding distracted. “Hey, do you remember that old guy Dad hunted with a few times? Lived with a shaman out west? Bradner, Buckner…”

“Bralner,” Dean said, wondering where the hell Cas was with Ketch, what he was doing with Ketch, instead of being here. “Died maybe eight years back. Car accident.”

“Oh.” Sam frowned. “I thought...never mind, doesn’t matter.”

He went back to reading, and scribbling in his notepad.

Dean went to make them both coffee; since Cas had decided he needed a break, Dean would take over.

It was his problem, anyway.

++

Ketch closed the door behind Cas when he came in, after making a show of checking the corridor was empty.

“I take it you haven’t mentioned this to either Winchester,” he said.

Cas glared at him. “I’m not an idiot. They would never have agreed to this.”

“And we do like it when we have their permission, don’t we, halo,” Ketch taunted him. “Nonetheless, even if this works-“

“If?” When Ketch had sold the idea to him, he’d made it sound a near certainty.

“Nothing is guaranteed,” Ketch snapped. “You should know that better than most. _If_ it works, we should still keep this strictly between us. The rite itself is...distasteful...in both preparation and application, but worth it if it works, wouldn’t you agree?”

Yes, he would, which was why he was here about to let Ketch do the unthinkable to him. 

Dean was worth it, but they both knew Dean wouldn’t agree. He’d be furious at both of them, though Cas knew Ketch would bear the worst of it. 

So this wouldn’t be something they told either Dean or Sam about; Ketch had already concocted some story or other about a rare text he’d translated from one of the abandoned Letters’ stations, that they could attribute their miraculous solution for Dean’s predicament to.

It was another deceit, and Cas hated both himself and Ketch for it, but if it saved Dean…

Cas would bear the brothers’ anger, and disappointment if they ever learned the truth..

But he had started to wonder if this was ever a cycle they’d break free from.

He heard Ketch cough impatiently, and turned to see him pulling down the bedsheets, and then reaching into the drawer by the bed.

“How do you…”. Cas trailed off. He was aware of the mechanics of the act, but factual knowledge seemed of little use when he was faced with the act itself.

Ketch looked at him with disdain.

“Removing your clothes generally helps.”

Cas realised he had hold of his trench coat, but not to take it off; instead he was clenching it tightly. 

“All of them?”

Ketch muttered something under his breath.

“Castiel,” he said, sternly. “You do know that at some point, they are going to wonder where we are, and what we are doing. We’re not friends; it’s unlikely they’ll think we’re taking lunch together by that stream out back. So, yes, _all of them_. And quickly, if you please.”

Cas glared at the man’s tone, but knew he was right. He took off his coats, and shirt; toed off his shoes, and then started on his pants.

Ketch watched him, and Cas couldn’t understand why that put him so ill at ease, but asking the other man to turn away so he could finish undressing felt like giving him a certain satisfaction, felt like admitting Ketch made him...uncomfortable.

So he brazened it out, and stripped down to bare skin, and then waited.

Ketch motioned to him to get on the bed, and Cas did so, awkwardly, coming onto his knees in the middle.

“No, no, you really haven’t ever done this before, have you? On your back, angel, against the headboard if you please.”

Cas went as directed, reminding himself this was for Dean. It was worth it, to save Dean.

And then he saw Ketch retrieve the items from the drawer and immediately sat up.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Cas demanded.

Ketch looked down at the handcuffs he was holding, and the tube of lubricant.

“Well, this is somewhat necessary to the proceedings.” He waggled the tube at Cas and then rattled the handcuffs. “And these are for my personal security.”

Cas huffed at them. “Your security.” He was naked and alone with someone who’d tried to kill the brothers, and no one actually knew where they were. “What exactly is it you think I’m going to do to you, Ketch?”

The Brit smirked at him. “I think we both know what you’d like to do to me, Castiel. But this is a somewhat personal act, and you may not like everything I have to do to you. These cuffs will make sure you don’t react...impulsively.”

“I can control my reactions.”

“Can you really? I can cite many examples demonstrating the opposite. But if you heart isn’t in this, we can try to find _another_ way to help Dean. I suppose.”

He made a show of putting the things away, and in that moment Cas doubted his own words. He very much wanted to hurt Ketch, but the man had been of use to them, and was being of use to them now.

And it was for Dean.

“Put them on, then,” Cas said, and held out his wrists.

He stayed still as Ketch fastened one side of the cuffs, then fed the chain around the headboard slats, and then restrained his other wrist.

He give the cuffs a tug, unnecessary in Cas’s view since they both knew they’d hold thanks to the sigils etched into the metal, and then stepped back.

“We’ll make this as quick as possible, then,” he said.

He took off his own jacket, and rolled up his sleeves. Retrieved a small container from the dresser and put it on the bed. Uncapped the tube and set it down there also.

Took off his own shoes, and then tugged one of the pillows out from behind Cas’s back and had him lift his hips enough to tuck it underneath.

For all his insistence on haste, he was showing little of it, and Cas began to suspect he was taking some kind of perverse enjoyment out of things.

But then, finally, he knelt on the bed, and pulled a pair of latex gloves from his pocket.

“I can explain how this will work,” Ketch said.

Cas shook his head. “Just get on with it.”

_Before we’re disturbed. Before Dean or Sam open that door and get the wrong idea of what is going on here. Before they then get the right idea and still shoot you in the head_.

And then he gasped at the first cold touch against his skin.

Ketch paused, watching him, but Cas nodded sharply, and so the man continued.

With nothing to compare it to, Cas had no expectations except that he would experience shame and discomfort, and in those respects he wasn’t wrong.

This was an intimate act, one he had entertained a fantasy of, for a while, but certainly not like this, and absolutely not with Ketch.

But other than that his body was tense and on guard, and Ketch sat back with an irritated sigh.

“The idea, Castiel, is for you to relax enough to let me in.”

“I know,” Cas said. Well, in truth, he didn’t, but it made sense. Except he couldn’t, not when he knew he was helpless while Ketch was touching him, and would do more.

“If it helps,” Ketch said, and then, before Cas could respond, he had crawled up the bed and was kissing him.

Cas gave a muffled yelp of protest, and the Brit drew back immediately.

“I take it that won’t help, then,” he said. “Perhaps we just need to get this over with.”

Cas nodded. Yes, it needed to be done and over with, and then he was never going to think of this again.

He startled when he saw Ketch reach into the drawer and produce another item, one he wasn’t familiar with.

“What is that for?”

Ketch was liberally applying lubricant to the device and then he carefully turned a small screw by the side of the handle.

The device had two curved prongs, and they slowly separated forming a kind of channel. 

“Ease of access,” Ketch said.

Perhaps it was the cuffs dampening his Grace, but Cas felt every moment of the tool being inserted.

Ketch’s pace was steady, but fast, pushing the device inside, and then expanding it until he had room for what he needed to do.

Cas tried to remain still, but a sheen of sweat at the discomfort had broken out across his skin; his fingers were locked around the cuffs, squeezing tight.

“Ketch,” he panted, as he felt those gloved fingers probing inside him. “Ketch, wait.”

Ketch didn’t. He didn’t even look at Castiel, just remained focused on what he was doing.

“There’s no time to wait, Castiel,” he said. “The ritual calls for the despoilment of a child of heaven, and you are the only one fitting that description, however remotely these days, that we have access to.”

Cas seethed, even though he knew Ketch’s words were true. It had been a long time since he could class himself as an angel, but clearly he was still angel enough for this rite.

He cried out as Ketch found something inside him, touched it, too hard, too fast, and something straddling both pain and an unwilling pleasure stabbed through him.

“Easy,” Ketch said. “If you’re too loud, they will hear you. Do you need me to gag you?”

Cas shook his head frantically. That was possibly the next worse development here. Bound, silenced and being touched by Ketch.

He swallowed down any more sounds, let his body protest when his voice couldn’t, until Ketch finally grabbed a belt and tightly bound Cas’s ankles together.

“This will take longer, now,” he chided, and then pushed Cas’s feet up so that his legs were in the air and he could no longer see what Ketch was doing.

He could still feel it, though, growing steadily worse, more painful, and he loved Dean, he did, but this…

“Please,” he said. “Ketch, I need to stop. Just, just for a moment.”

Ketch ignored him.

“Ketch,” Cas panted. He couldn’t yell, didn’t dare to, but he couldn’t take any more. “Ketch, stop!”

But his voice was louder than he’d meant it to be, and Ketch dropped his legs to the bed without warning.

“So much for controlling your impulses,” he snapped. “I guess we will have to try this another way.”

He grabbed the other pillow from behind Cas, and pushed it down over his face.

“Since you can’t keep yourself quiet, halo, I’ll help you with that.”

++

Dean had finished his coffee, and pushed the book he was reading aside. Cas had clearly already been through it. There were post it notes on several pages, with the angel’s neat Enochian writing and some question marks. A few had English written underneath, in what Dean recognised as Sam’s handwriting, so clearly Sam had also looked at what Cas had found.

And it hadn’t come to anything, he figured, or Sam wouldn’t be ready to fall asleep at the table.

And there was still no sign of Cas.

Dean pushed the book away. He’d felt uneasy the past half hour, unable to put his finger on why. Still annoyed at their angel, dumping all the research on Sam, still feeling kind of abandoned that Cas had gone off with Ketch instead of working to find a way to help him.

Since when had they been such buddies, anyway?

But he kept coming back to the sensation of something buzzing unpleasantly in his head, like something was definitely wrong, and he couldn’t understand what, but it was there, just waiting on him working it out.

“I’m going to find out where they are,” he said, and got up.

Sam shrugged. “Cas can take care of himself. Ketch wouldn’t dare try anything, Dean.”

“Mmm. It’s _Ketch_.” Ketch, who had a hatred of anything inhuman, especially angels. Who viewed Cas as in turns, a tool, something to be put down, or tied down on a table for vivisection.

Dean wouldn’t trust Ketch with his least favourite T-shirt never mind a member of his family.

And something was telling him that feeling of dread that had been plaguing him was there for a reason that was Cas related.

They checked Cas’s room first, and it was empty.

An impulse told Dean to check Ketch’s room next.

Dean was very glad that they did.

++

Cas didn’t need to breathe, so the only thing the pillow over his face did was to smother his cries.

He supposed on some level he should be grateful; this...this had to be done, though it hurt and he wanted it to stop, and this way he didn’t have to worry about trying to keep quiet.

But it didn’t quell the panic in him. What if Ketch hurt him worse like this? What if he was doing other things now he had him restrained and without the ability to see what was going on or try to summon help?

Then Ketch’s hand was on Cas’s penis, and his testicles, working at them, trying to stimulate him.

His body started to respond, and Cas groaned at the odd sensation moving through him.

And then he heard the room door crash open, two voices yelling his name, and the thud of a body hitting the floor.

The pillow was tugged away, and Dean was staring at him in outright horror.

“What the fuck is going on here?” 

Cas shuddered and sagged back against the bed. “You have to get out,” he said.

He looked down and saw Ketch picking himself up off the floor, with Sam standing over him.

At least, Cas supposed, they hadn’t shot him.

“Get out?” Dean’s voice was taut with fury. “What the fuck?”

“Dean,” Cas said, and then Ketch butted in.

“If we can all calm down,” he said. “Then I can explain.”

Dean turned on him with a murderous look. “I can’t think of anything you’re gonna say that’ll stop me shooting you. But okay. Sam, get him the hell out of here.”

Then he turned to Cas, and tugged at the cuffs holding him prisoner. “Where the hell are the keys?”

++

When Cas was ready, wrapped up tight in a blanket (he hadn’t felt ready to get dressed yet, his body still feeling like it wasn’t his own, like it was distant somehow), Dean had led him through to the war room.

Ketch was sitting in one of the chairs, and Sam was standing over him again as if one wrong word would see him ripping the man’s head off.

“Alright,” Dean said. “Let’s look at this like you’ve got one chance for me not to shoot you right there, Ketch. What the hell were you doing in that room because I know what it looked like.”

“Which is not what was actually happening.” Ketch sounded entirely too calm.

Cas wished he felt the same. Dean guided him into a chair, and his look made it clear he expected him to stay there.

“Oh, so you _weren’t_ raping Cas?”

Ketch had the temerity to roll his eyes, and Cas was sure at that point Dean was going to kill him.

“Dean,” he said. “He wasn’t.”

Dean turned slowly to stare at him. “Cas. Cas, he had you cuffed to the bed, with a pillow over your face, and he was-“

“I know what he was doing. I was there, and it wasn’t anything I hadn’t approved in advance. Not the...not the pillow, but…”

Dean crouched down in front of him. “Look, if you’re trying to protect him…”

From across the table, Ketch actually laughed.

“Protect me? Dean, you’re a fool. This, all of this, has been about protecting _you_.”

++

Sam had seen Ketch out, making it very clear he should stay the hell away from them, until he was told otherwise, and then loaned Cas some clothes since at that point he didn’t feel at all like wearing his own, even though Sam had offered to retrieve them from Ketch’s room.

The angel couldn’t explain it, but Sam seemed to understand on some level, and had made sure he was alright before telling Cas they would certainly be speaking later of what he’d tried to do.

There was no judgement there, no criticism; just...concern, for him, and love, and he took that with him when he went to face Dean.

Sam had offered to go with him, but it was something Cas had to do alone.

In a way, with Dean, he was fighting two battles. The battle with Michael, and the battle against Dean’s own certainty that he was worth none of it - the pain, the effort, the sacrifice.

When, in truth, he was worth all of it, everything.

Cas knocked on Dean’s door, and went in.

++

Dean looked up as Cas came in, looking smaller somehow in Sam’s tee-shirt and jeans. He was barefoot, also, and Dean reached across and grabbed a pair of socks from his drawer.

He lobbed them at Cas, and the angel caught them, stared at them as if they were some new invention he’d missed being developed.

“You put them on,” Dean said.

“Oh. Yes. Yes, I know that.”

Dean looked pointedly from him to the bed, and Cas obediently sat next to him and tugged the socks on to his feet.

When he was done, he stared at them, hands clasped in his lap, and then, finally spoke.

“Dean.”

“I mean what the hell were you thinking of? ‘Cause that _was_ rape, Cas, no matter how you want to try and dress it up. Maybe you went into it willing, and your definition of willing is fucked up, I’m going to tell you, but then he took away your ability to tell him to stop. He probably did that because you _were_ telling him to stop, right?”

Cas looked ashamed, and Dean’s head actually started to hurt when he realised why.

“Do not,” he said, feeling his throat tighten up, and the nip of angry tears, “do not sit there like you let me down somehow because you changed your mind about being forced into a sex act for me. You should never have put yourself in that position in the first place, but whatever happened you had every right to want him to stop! But it was Ketch, Cas! Did you honestly think you could _trust_ him?”

Cas rounded on him with a ferocity it had been a long time since Dean had seen from the angel.

“I knew I couldn’t!” Cas yelled. “But I was out of options, Dean! Every hour we wait, is another hour Michael has to pound away at that door. You’re strong, you said it yourself; your mind, your rules, but he’s an archangel who ruined a world! And if he does get loose, he’ll leave you like he did that other Earth. A scorched husk, ruined beyond repair.

“And even without him, it feels like we’re losing you to this. You’re sinking under it, punishing yourself for a decision you made because there weren’t any others!”

Dean winced at the memory of saying yes to Michael, the ultimate stupid knee jerk decision, when he knew, knew he couldn’t trust the bastard.

“I should have found one.”

“With Sam and Jack helpless, and trapped with Lucifer. There wasn’t time to find another way, and we both know it, but it hurt, Dean. It hurt hearing you say those words when we both knew he’d take you and we might never get you back.”

“You nearly didn’t.” And it was temporary, they all knew it.

“But we did,” Cas said. He cupped Dean’s face, forcing the hunter to look at him. “We did, and we plan to keep you, Dean, and there’s nothing, _nothing_ , I won’t at least attempt to save you. You’re worth every sacrifice I can make.”

He tried to pull away, but Cas held on, even when Dean tugged at his fingers. 

“No,” he protested. “Cas, I’m not, look at everything I’ve done. Michael is loose because of me and that’s the latest in the long line of things I’ve fucked up, people I’ve gotten hurt and killed, people like you and you’re still sitting there telling me you’d go through it all again.”

“Yes,” Cas said, and he was so calm suddenly, and Dean recognised it for the lull before the storm broke, because he’d been there himself, watching his shabbily patched up walls finally crack open. “You’re not the only person to have _fucked up_ , Dean. And no matter what, I will always, always, do what I can to keep you safe. You deserve that, and I...Dean, I can’t lose you...I…”

Dean pulled Cas into his arms, and held on as he finally, finally let it go…. Everything he figured Cas had been storing up so long he’d probably forgotten how to get it out until this had brought just too much strain to bear.

“You won’t,” Dean said, and part of him cowered at the thought of trying to keep that promise. But he meant it. Somehow he would find a way. Because if Cas was convinced he was worth all the pain, Dean was just as sure Cas was worth winning this fight for.

But that meant Cas being around for him to do so.

“That means you gotta be here, too, Cas,” Dean said. “I can’t lose you either, so nobody else gets to hurt you, Cas, in or out. You matter, as more than a tactic or a chess move, or some way of saving me from shit, even myself. You’re part of my family, angel, and I need you.”

_I love you_.

Maybe he didn’t say it aloud, but Cas heard that, Dean could tell, from the way he went limp in Dean’s arms.

Dean held him like that for the next while, soothing and being soothed in turn, and only later did he let his thoughts turn to what he was going to do to Ketch when this was all over.

No way that bastard was getting off with this.

**Author's Note:**

> So, what started as a small quick fill for a kink meme prompt where Ketch crosses the line and gets his ass kicked for it turned into this.
> 
> Cas does go into this mostly aware of what Ketch plans to do, though the handcuffs weren’t pre-discussed, but Ketch still crosses the line when Cas tells him to stop and he won’t, so please be aware what starts as a situation with iffy, at best, consent, soon turns into something completely non-consensual.
> 
> It leaves Cas in a very bad place, and that impacts on Dean so both of them suffer emotionally in this, but it does at least force them to finally use their words.
> 
> Ketch uses a pillow to shut Cas up in this, so even though angels don’t need air, you should be aware that it takes place in this story.
> 
> Cas feels guilty because he tried to stop Ketch instead of pushing through for Dean’s sake. Dean feels guilty because he let Michael take possession of him, and so blames himself for every single thing since then, and events previous to that.
> 
> Honestly, these boys. :(


End file.
